Nail Hardeners and Treatments

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

UGH. This weekend we had to put in a wooden floor in our dumb ass condo for the new tenant. I thought I avoided the whole nail breaking scenario by skipping participation in the carpet removal step. WRONG!

I wore Color Clubs Wild at Heart ... one of my favorites!

Mmmmm purple holo :D

Granted my nails were getting pretty long, so a slight trim would have been a smart idea.

However, as always, taking down length hurts ... my ego.

But you know what hurts more? Ripping a nail off past the quick. F-ing OUCH. Okay so this shit really hurt. Do you see how low that skank ripped off. As always I went into panic mode and shortened the rest before I took this picture.

So what the hell was I doing? I was removing a nail from cement using a crow bar.

Oh and the color on my pinky doesn't match the rest. That's another story for another time.

I guess you'll be seeing a lot of swatches from the left hand from now on.

Isn't this iphone pic really good quality?

So I did end up shortening only the left hand a bit. The lengths of the nails are not all even, but I just couldn't take them down any further.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Finally a post to thank a whole bunch of lovely ladies for gifting me with some blog awards/tags and another opportunity for me to reveal some deep dark juicy secrets about myself. It seems most of the things I've come up with have to do with my childhood and carries over into my adult life. I hope that you will laugh and cry with me, lol

If there was anyone else I forgot please forgive me. Let me know and I will make it right.

All of these ladies have fantastic blogs that I love to read so check them out at your leisure :D

Now on to my secrets ... I'm sorry if I bore you ... lots of words ahead lol

1. When I was a kid I desperately wanted braces. Maybe because it was cool because every body and their mom had them or because I had some serious gappy horse teeth about which my sister constantly reminded me. So how does a poor FOB get braces?! I used to unroll paper clips and stick them in my mouth and pretend I had a retainer LOL. OMG can we say chocking hazard.

2. When we first came to America my sister and I discovered chips. Life as we know it has never been the same since. We used to go shopping with my mom and both beg for a bag of our own. On the car ride home we would demolish the entire bag. Thank God our metabolisms were slightly higher back in the day.

3. Growing up all of my clothes came from the Salvation Army or Goodwill. No big deal right? Except the only available choices were bright yellow pants and a pink ruffled shirts. But hey you do what you have to ...

Holy crap I actually found this picture searching "Goodwill ugly clothes" after I wrote my post, amazing how my description fits just perfectly LOL

4. Christmas was never about presents for my family because we were po' but damn it the kids at school always made Christmas so damn depressing. All the kids in school would come back from break asking about what everyone got. All I had was a paper clip in my mouth lol, but to fit in I used to try to make new outfits out of the clothes I already had. I don't know how you can change the yellow pants or pink ruffles so yea, I don't think anyone was fooled.

5. Growing up, I seriously wanted a tennis skirt (ya know the one with the pleats) sooooo bad. But guess what, it wasn't available at the Salvation Army. I love field hockey and Lacrosse for the outfits alone :D. I finally got my wish when I started playing lacrosse in college!! :D

6. The family joke is ... I was found in a trash can. Since I can remember, my lovely father has come up with this clever anecdote and my sister likes to encourage him. Apparently I didn't look like anyone when I was born, nice guys ... real nice. I did of course pop out of my moms womb, so she always had my back.

7. Granted most Russians pop out of the vagina doing back flips I actually taught myself. I was watching Ahmad Rashad on NBA InsideStuff and they showed a seriously ginormous man doing a back flip. I was like 'What the HELL?!'. I had been trying to syke myself up for some time to do it and this was all I needed to get me over the edge. I ran to my parents bedroom, jumped on the bed, and did it. Broke the fan in the mean time LOL but hey I did it!!

8. I want to live in a castle when I grow up. Seriously, Harry Potter style.

10. You may already know I am a scientist from my profile blurb, but what exactly do I do? My dissertation work involves shooting x-rays at alternative energy systems like fuel cells and batteries. I'm talking about the same type of x-rays that you get at the dentist except in my case I need really high energy x-rays because I need to excite core level electrons in precious metals (platinum, cobalt, tantalum etc). These types of x-rays require the use of a synchrotron. pic found here

These things are miles long and the most famous one is located at CERN. Anywho, a whole bunch of quantum mechanical principles later, I tell you how this stuff works at the atomic level. zzzzzzz .....Okay please wake up now lol.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Some people are probably thinking WTF?! Why would you want that?! Believe it or not I get about one hit a week from people searching the topic. Normally people want the opposite of this and I showed how you could achieve longer nail beds in a previous post found here.

Actually I've had the tutorial pictures for this post prepared months back, but I am a bit hesitant to post because I thought I might get some back lash with the method. Hopefully people will read the post in it's entirety. Either way maybe a few words of caution first ...

BE GENTLE

More on how later in the post but first, why would someone want to do this?! How about some pictures?

I suppose some people would actually want to shorten their nail beds while others just want to even out the smile line. It's all about what you find aesthetically pleasing.

Not all nails are created equal. Sometimes they grow all weird at the free edge. What we are really talking about is skin connected to the nail called hyponychium.

This picture shows one nail that grows pretty even (in black) while the other (in red) is a bit wonky.

Lets look at the hyponychium from underneath the nail ...

Some people have this skin grow up the nail free edge while other people will not even notice it.

It's this skin (in blue) that you can GENTLY manipulate to even out or shorten the nail bed.

Manipulating this skin is not a permanent fix. It will grow back ...

I swear it grows back. Here is one hand where I GENTLY pushed back the skin.

Here is the same hand months later.

Finally the HOW TO:

There are a plethora of ways to go about doing this.
For example, you could put your hands in warm water for a couple of minutes or even better do this after a hot shower. Doing this after a shower with cuticle oil is the way to go if it's your first time.

Some tools. It looks a bit scary, but that is why I stress pushing back the hyponychium SLOWLY and GENTLY. This shouldn't hurt ... ever.

So, let's grease up first k?

Apply oil to the cuticle.

Apply oil underneath.

Wait 5 to 10 minutes for the oil to penetrate and soften the skin.

Use the tools GENTLY and SLOWLY to push back the hyponychium to create the smile line you find appealing.

After the skin is pushed back your nail will be clear underneath. You can see this on two of the nails in the picture. After the nail dries it will go to the normal free edge nail color.

Is this safe and should you do this?! That is up to you. All I am saying here is that I've been there done that and survived, lol. If you don't feel comfortable poking yourself underneath your nail then don't do it. However, if you are doing it gently and slowly it should not hurt and it will grow back.

The proper version (written with lots of pictures) of this post can be found here, however here is a YouTube video if you're into that sorta thing. I have to admit the written version is more useful, but hey what eve's ...

About Me

I am a big nerdy scientist who likes to eat and do my nails, preferably not at the same time.
Nail care has been an obsession of mine for a really long time and I just want to share what I know.
CONTACT: xloodiex@gmail.com

The wonderful world of nail treatments. Boy back in the day this was it for me. I loved trying new products, but since I was a tween/teen...

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